Lafarge, the world’s biggest cement company, is relying on small homebuilders in India and other emerging markets to help pull it through one of the worst slumps to hit construction in years.

Bruno Lafont, chairman and chief executive officer of the French group, told the Financial Times in Mumbai that the group’s businesses in the most “difficult” western markets – such as the US, Spain and UK – were down 10 to 20 per cent.